Allentown man seeks new trial in shooting

Stephen Harley Zuber serving up to 40 years for wounding girlfriend last year.

December 10, 2013|By Peter Hall, Of The Morning Call

A traumatic episode from Stephen Harley Zuber's youth caused him to overreact when he shot his girlfriend twice through a car window, Zuber told a judge Tuesday as his attorney asked for a new trial or a reduced sentence.

Fighting tears, Zuber recalled peering through the windows of his mother's car as a 5-year-old boy and watching police wrestle his mother to the ground after she chased his father with a shotgun.

So in August 2012, Zuber lashed out when his girlfriend, Ashley Johnson, became suspicious he was using drugs and threatened to take their 3-year-old son.

"I was in fear of losing my son," Zuber said of the shooting that landed him in prison for 20 to 40 years. "I was having a flashback to what happened to me because I lost my mom."

In a hearing before Lehigh County Judge James T. Anthony, Zuber's attorney, John Baurkot, argued the evidence prosecutors presented in a September bench trial before Anthony doesn't support his conviction for attempted homicide. He also asked Anthony to consider reducing Zuber's sentence.

According to testimony in Zuber's trial, the 33-year-old Allentown man punched the window of Johnson's car before firing a semi-automatic pistol at her, hitting her in the chest and wrist. Zuber then took his son and barricaded himself in their home, using the boy as a human shield during a standoff with police.

Anthony ruled the evidence was enough to support a conviction for attempted homicide, aggravated assault, carrying a firearm without a license and endangering the welfare of a child.

Baurkot said his client could not have formed the specific intent to kill required to support a homicide conviction in the spur of the moment. Johnson's injuries did not indicate he intended to cause grievous harm or that she was close to death as a result, Baurkot said.

At worst, Baurkot said, the evidence against Zuber supports a conviction for aggravated assault.

But Chief Deputy District Attorney Bethany Zampogna said there was overwhelming evidence of Zuber's intent that contradicted his assertion that the gun went off accidentally when he used it to rap on the car window.

In addition to spent shell casings from the gun, investigators found two unspent rounds on the ground, indicating Zuber worked the slide to chamber a round when there was one already there.

Two perfectly round bullet holes in the car window show Zuber aimed at Johnson and the fact that he did not call for help after shooting her shows he was indifferent to her welfare, Zampogna said. And Johnson still has a bullet lodged in her chest and suffers pain from her injuries, Zampogna said, asking Anthony to dismiss the motions.

Last week, Zuber also pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child for shooting Johnson's 7-year-old daughter in the buttocks with a BB gun. He denied the BB gun shooting in court Dec. 3, but convicted himself of the crime by pleading no contest to endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

In return for the plea, Zampogna agreed to drop a simple assault charge and have the sentence for the endangerment charge run concurrently with Zuber's state prison term for trying to kill Johnston.